Tuesday, June 4, 2013

The truth of Sino-Indian 2013 Ladakh standoff Part 1: The unholy western and India alliance against China

These days, China get bash even if India is at the wrong

On April 2013, India media went frenzy accusing China of incursion. The western media follow suite, even for very respectable magazine such as Economist. Below is an except from economist. It refers to Indian's alleged Chinese incursion of Depsang plains in Aksai Chin.

India accuses its neighbour to the north-east of sending troops some 19km past a line of actual control (LAC), in the Despang (wrong spelling)area of Ladakh, a part of Jammu & Kashmir state that is wedged between Tibet proper and the vale of Kashmir. They have reportedly been there for more than two weeks. Now a small number of Indian soldiers have set up camp within a stone’s throw of their Chinese counterparts. Though there is no sign yet of escalation—and would seem to be little prospect of it—nor have the sides found a way to walk back.....It has been widely noted that leaks about the incursion came from India’s defence forces, while its diplomats appeared to try to hush it all up. One reliably hawkish Indian commentator, Brahma Chellaney, lashes out at India’s mild-mannered leaders as being unable to speak up themselves with any strength. Hawks, by and large, want India to retaliate by making remarks about China’s behaviour inside Tibet, essentially raising questions about the legitimacy of Chinese rule there. By contrast the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and his foreign minister, Salman Khurshid, are playing down the dispute in Ladakh (and stay entirely mum on Tibet). Mr Khurshid has compared the Chinese incursion to a pimple on an otherwise unblemished face.A related but subtler response sees the current confrontation as being only partly about India’s relative weakness and partly as a Chinese reaction to India’s trying (even if in a limited way) to assert itself. One military analyst, Ajai Shukla, sees China behaving just as it did during two previous episodes of tension on the border, when India pushed forward. First in the 1950s, then again in the 1980s, India attempted to increase its military capacity along the disputed border. China reacted the first time by invading, which resulted in a brief border war in 1962 and the humiliation of India, as well as the destruction of what had been cordial relations. That war also cost China: marking it out as an aggressive power on the rise. The second time, in the 1980s, a confrontation on the border led eventually to a visit to China by Rajiv Gandhi, then India’s prime minister—and an improvement in ties.This time around, says Mr Shukla,China has clearly signalled its discomfort with India’s troop build-up, submitting a draft proposal for a freeze on troop levels that will solidify and make permanent India’s disadvantage along the LAC.He argues that India should respond by offering to keep talking; refusing such a freeze; and getting on meanwhile with building roads and other military infrastructure, as fast as it can.It is hard, in fact, to see what China actually hopes to achieve with the incursion. Its foreign-ministry spokesmen continue to deny any wrongdoing. They deny, too, accusations that Chinese helicopters crossed into Indian-controlled airspace in an attempt to resupply their soldiers.

I am a frequent reader of Indian newspaper and Indo-Pak forum. These days, Indian reporting has far worse record of credibility compared to newspapers from Muslim countries. Among Muslim countries, there is at least an Al Jazeera which is very credible.

As the intruding Chinese soldiers refuse to budge from their occupied position in Daulat Beg Oldi(DBO) sector in Ladakh, two Chinese military helicopters have violated Indian airspace at Chumar, several hundred kilometres southeast of Leh, adding to the prevailing tension. The Chinese choppers entered the Indian airspace on April 21 and hovered over the area for quite sometime and returned after dropping some food cans, cigarette packets and notes written in their local language, official sources said today.

Indians are mentioning about 2 cases of Chinese"incursion"

First : India's accusation of 19 km incursion on Depsang plains by Chinese Army. Below is from google map. You can get to Depsang plains by entering "Depsang La, Leh, Jammu and Kashmir 194401" in google map. As you can see the LAC (line of actual control) cuts Depsang plains into half. Even if Chinese army incur to the maximum limit of Indian side of Depsang plains, it would be just an incursion of 5km. And Chinese army is very likely to camp within China side of Depsang plain.

Chinese army should be camping within the yellow circled area, as on the picture above, the tent rest on pretty flat land. This place is the so called Depsang plain. The next nearest plain on India side is more than 40 km away. In between, there are only mountain ridges.

Second: Chinese incursion of "several hundred kilometer inside India" in Chumar. You can get Chumar location by using google map and enter "leh Chumar". The Indian Chumar area is where roads built by Indians is terminated. It is around 3 km from Chinese line of percepted LAC. It is around 6 km from India's percepted LAC(Indian's percepted border could be anywhere hundreds of km inside Tibet). An "Chinese incursion" of, for example 250 km (several hundreds) from LAC near Chumar will be tantamount of reaching Leh (seat of Ladakh) or Shimla (capital of Himachal Pradesh).

While all Indian press are still cooking hate against China, all military forums in the world, other than those run by Indians have already indicted India as a liar, victim feigner, and rascal. India media's credibility is in ruin. The western media are still hostile against China. Nevertheless, Chinese has earn the respect of many non Indian military pundits. You can bluff the people by feeding them mis-information on MSM but you cannot bluff extremely smart individuals. India now appears as a clown,